WHy are Chemical Kinetics Important?

Kinetics is the study of the time course behavior of a chemical reaction. “How fast do chemical reactions go?”

We should care about this field because of:

1. Synthetic OptimizationHow long and under what conditions should you allow a reaction to proceed to maximize yield and profit and minimize unwanted side reactions?

2. Biological SystemsLiving systems respond to their environment largely by modulating the kinetics of their signaling networks.

3. Molecular ComputingSystematic control of kinetics mechanism can be used to design synthetic systems which process information.

4. Mathematical ModelsThe primary “business of science” is to produce models that faithfully represent the physical processes involved. Allows us to hypothesize what will happen in a chemical reaction without actually performing it. Mathematical models are what separate experimentation from engineering and are woefully under-employed in the life-sciences.

Feb 8th, 2015

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